A group of former South Korean elite soldiers slaughtered live pheasants, Japan’s national bird, outside the Japanese embassy in Seoul last Thursday (July 17) in protest against Japan’s sovereignty claim on Liancourt Rocks. Video below…
The Liancourt Rocks are a group of small islets in waters between Japan and Korea; the islets are also known as Dokdo in Korean or Takeshima in Japanese. Both nations are claiming sovereignty over the islands… and the dispute heated up recently following Japan’s fresh claim of ownership in their textbook guidelines.
The South Koreans protested heavily as expected, and I don’t blame them for doing so. However, cruelly slaughtering live birds in public? That’s too much.
Most foreigners don’t have enough knowledge on who actually owns the island. We can only learn a bit of the story from news and websites; and this kind of bird-killing gimmick certainly won’t go well in global opinions… it achieved nothing besides showing the world a bad image of South Koreans.
